The EFL play-offs at 40: Sky Sports' memories of four decades of drama

The EFL play-offs at 40Memories lovingly relived across Sky Sports from up and down the EFL of four decades of the play-offsThe EFL play-offs. You can't guarantee drama - but you might as well. Euphoria. Despair. Controversy. Stunning goals, smash-and-grab victories and three unforgettable days out at Wembley Stadium every season, somehow almost faultlessly in the spring sunshine. This season marks the 40th edition of the play-offs since they were introduced to the Football League in 1986/87. In the four decades since they have provided countless memories for hundreds of thousands of fans up and down the country, and up and down the divisions.As the 2025/26 season draws to a close ahead of this season's play-offs, we asked the Sky Sports News team for their best - and worst - memories of the delight, and the pain, that they can bring... PLUS: Watch The Play-Offs at 40 documentary on Sky Sports Football from 6pm on Saturday, revisiting some of the most memorable moments from the last four decades.Got Sky? Watch the EFL play-offs on the Sky Sports appNot got Sky? Stream the EFL play-offs with no contract2025/26 EFL play-off schedule for Championship, League One & League TwoNorwich 1-1 Birmingham (Birmingham won 4-2 on penalties)2001/02 First Division play-off final | 12 May 2002 | Millennium Stadium (Att: 71,597) By Ed Higgs, Sky Sports News Deputy ProducerIf core footballing memories are created between the age of five and eight, then it’s little wonder I’m a glass half-full kind of supporter. Three consecutive play-off defeats, each more traumatic than the last, had seen off Trevor Francis as manager and even my sister, who packed it in after 1999's shootout defeat to Watford. 'It was too much seeing grown men cry’, she said.So when Norwich went 1-0 up in extra-time of the 2002 final, it was little wonder that eight-year-old me burst into tears. A kindly gentleman gave me some crisps to try and cheer me up, but it was no good. Surely there was more to life than...